


License and Registration

by Arsenic



Series: Discipline and Punish [34]
Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prison, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-13
Updated: 2007-11-13
Packaged: 2020-03-29 10:16:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19017880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/Arsenic
Summary: Bob needs Gerard to do something for him.





	License and Registration

Thursday was one of Gerard's late nights at the store, since that was when they did inventory. Fabio tended to be pretty nice about supplying snacks, especially for Gerard, who was the only employee willing to help out every single week. Mikey was usually asleep when Gerard came home. If it was at all cool enough for them to sleep in the same room Gerard would try and climb into bed quietly. Mikey always woke up, but he generally just twisted his hand in whatever piece of Gerard's nightwear was nearest and fell right back asleep. It was a little surprising, then, to walk in one Thursday night and find Mikey sitting at the table with two other people whom Gerard had never met. They were drinking the powdered lemonade that Mikey liked in the summer, the pink kind their grandmother had always made for them. It was cheap and sweet and cold, and Gerard was glad Mikey remembered to do things like mix the powder in water and put it in the fridge. Details were forever escaping Gerard.

There was a woman and a man at the table. They were roughly the same size, so far as Gerard could tell with them both sitting down. The man was good-looking in a soft sort of way, with curly brown hair and wide-set eyes. The woman had the darkest skin Gerard had ever seen, braids down to the middle of her back and well-defined facial features. Gerard blinked and asked, "Ilya?"

The man stood and surveyed Gerard. Gerard did his best to keep his hands at his side, not to try and dust himself off or anything. If he'd been given a little warning, he could have looked his best. He would have. Slowly, Ilya said, "You're Gerard."

Gerard nodded. Ilya didn't sound entirely certain of how to parse the fact that Gerard existed and he was who he was. After a few minutes, he said, "And you know know of me."

Gerard said, "Bob sort of makes the times when he does talk count."

The woman snorted at that. Gerard looked over at her. She stood and held out her hand. "I'm Jessamine, but everyone calls me Jess."

He took the hand. "Gerard, but everyone calls me Gee. Also, I like Jessamine. Can I call you Jessamine? It's pretty."

She shrugged. "Your syllables to waste." She sounded more charmed than she wanted to let on.

Gerard looked back at Ilya. He hesitated a bit before admitting, "I'm not exactly sure why you're here."

Ilya tilted his head. "Let's sit down, yes?"

Mikey had poured some lemonade for Gerard at some point and even gotten him out the jar of peanut butter and the packet of Saltines he liked to snack on late at night. Gerard smiled at him. "You going to bed?"

Mikey shook his head. "I'm pretty sure I wanna hear this."

Once they were all seated, Ilya said, "He didn't mention you."

Gerard had suspected as much, but the confirmation made the remnants of his first cracker sharp and dry in his mouth. He nodded. Ilya said, "I don't say this to-- You must understand. In our neighborhood, a man being with a man..." Ilya spread his hands.

Gerard understood. He didn't have to like it, but he could understand. "And you're the only family he has."

Ilya nodded. "We took him in when his mom died."

"Oh," Gerard said. Bob had sort of forgotten to mention that part. Or having a mom at all, actually. Gerard had guessed there were parents somewhere--Bob wasn't hatched--but that was sort of a big piece of information Bob had left out.

Ilya said, "She had cancer. He doesn't talk about it, not unless he absolutely has to. They were very close."

When Bob got out, Gerard really was going to tie him to the bed until they had some things straightened out between them. "All right. So, he waited until now to tell you because he was worried about you judging him, but you must not have, because you're here."

Ilya looked down at the table. "He never looked at women. Not like the others. He was different, mostly, so he got away with it, but Jess always--"

Gerard glanced over at Jess. She said, "He was a classic case of gay, really."

Gerard blinked. "Um. Bob?"

Jess frowned a little. "The guy you're sleeping with? Or would be, anyway? That's pretty gay, Gee."

"But he's--" Gerard shook his head. "Prison, it--"

"No," Jess said. "No, Bob was always into the boys. I mean, he'd do girls, if he thought avoiding it was gonna bring down trouble, but trust me. That was never his thing."

"Maybe he just, I mean, you were Ilya's, so--"

"We used to go out on double dates. Trust me, Gee. Bob had one thing and one thing on his mind only, and if it wasn't carburetors, it was cock."

Ilya buried his face in his hands. Jess patted his back. Gerard said, "Oh. Um. I'm still not sure why you're here."

Ilya reached into his pocket and drew a piece of paper out. He handed it to Gerard. It was folded in two. Gerard opened it up and read Bob's handwriting: "Stand for me."

Gerard read it four times before he was able to quietly ask, "Are you sure you want that?"

Slowly, Jess said, "I want something of Ilya there," and in the statement, beneath the calm of her tone, was a hurt that just barely showed itself on her face. Gerard looked at Ilya.

Ilya said, "I want something of Bob there."

Without even realizing what he was doing, Gerard wrapped his hand around the jaguar tooth at his neck. "Okay. Then of course I will."

 

*

They scheduled the wedding for a Tuesday afternoon, because that was the other day Gerard generally had off and it was easier for Jess and Ilya to work their schedule around Gerard's than anything else. They couldn't be married by the Orthodox Church, since Jess had no plans to convert, and Ilya didn't want to be married in any other church, so they settled on a justice of the peace wedding. Gerard said to Jess, "You having some kind of dinner or something afterward?" and she said, "I got knocked up, Gee."

He said, "But you love him, right? I mean, you've been together since you were fifteen."

"My mom'd make a fuss if I asked, but that's not really my thing, y'know?" Jess' mom was the other witness for the wedding. From what Jess said, she'd long ago gotten over her hopes that Jess would find a nice black boy and settle down. If Ilya was the closest thing she was going to get, she'd take him.

"It's your wedding, Jessamine."

"I guess. I guess it's that I've known I would get to keep him for a long time now. This is just a formality."

Gerard thought that over. "How does it feel? Knowing?"

Jess was silent for a long time. When she spoke again she said, "Maybe a wedding cake isn't such a bad idea."

 

*

Jess didn't want to ask her mom to take any more time off work than she already was, though, and Greta was on vacation, so Gerard asked Alex, the guy who helped Chris run the soup kitchen when Greta wasn't around. Normally he just volunteered once a week, but he was around a lot and easy to find when Greta wasn't there. Gerard said, "Hypothetically, how much would you want to get paid for making a cake?"

Alex said, "I'm not really so much of a baker."

"Better than my other options," Gerard told him honestly.

"What's it for?" Alex asked.

"Friend of mine is getting married."

"I really, really have no idea where to start with a wedding cake."

"We don't need anything fancy," Gerard told him.

"How many people?"

"Three or four."

"Oh." Alex blinked.

"Like I said." Gerard shrugged.

"Would pie work? I'm pretty good at Oreo ice cream pies."

"Perfect. What's your price?"

"Buy me the ingredients and save me a piece."

They shook on it.

 

*

Gerard made Jon come and bring his camera, since he was pretty good at taking pictures. Jon protested: mostly the stuff he took was still, he wasn't really a party photographer, but Gerard needed adequate documentation of the event is he was to draw it later. Also, he wanted something to bring Bob, something for him to see. When he visited Bob afterward he said, "I stood tall," like an offering, and somehow it reached Bob, pushed in past the barricade of silence he'd had up since Gerard had said, "You never said anything about me," the week before. It hadn't even really been an accusation, more of a question.

Bob said, "You do. You...do."

Gerard shook his head. "Not really. You know. You found me in here. You know."

Bob looked down. "I saw that, though. I saw-- Jaguar."

"Bob," Gerard breathed, and it was all he could do not to throw himself against the plexiglass, over and over until he broke right through. It was melodramatic and stupid and a million other things, but he wanted to touch, he wanted what was his back, he wanted to _know_.

"There was too much to say. Or... Or the words were wrong. Or both."

Gerard asked, "About? About me?"

"Didn't know how to start," Bob confirmed.

Gerard knew it was impossible, he really did understand, he wasn't simple or anything, but he said, "Three words. Just three."


End file.
